Technology can make your life easy or difficult, depending on your perspective. History has shown that difference of perspectives can grow huge and sometimes even lead to wars. The tech battles mentioned here do not involve fist-fights and explosive ammo, their weapons are legal reasoning, public support and user dependencies. Here are some of the biggest tussles of the tech industry in 2010:
To put it simply, China wants Google to censor search results but Google isn’t ready to. They say they would rather leave their $600 Million annual revenue coming from China than compromise on freedom of speech. China doesn’t seem to care and it is probable that Google will exit from China, but it’s not over till it’s over!
There are other smart phones too but these two are the giants and want to take each other out. We have already seen lawsuits from Apple targeting HTC, the main manufacturer of Google’s Android based phones. So, even though it is a fight between two smart phones, it becomes very serious because of the companies behind them, Google and Apple.
Kindle was released quietly a couple of years ago and has gained a solid ground in the e-reader market. The iPad was launched with a lot of hype which turned into a let down for users. Launching soon, iPad will directly take on the Kindle and with both allowing third-party apps, the competition will be tough.
HTML5 slowly crept into many platforms this year and threatens to take over Flash. Adobe is naturally angry and heated arguments are ensuing all over between the advocates of HTML5 and that of Flash. Within next few months the picture might get a little clearer as to where Flash stands vs. the new technology. Specially with Apple shunning Flash from its upcoming iPads, Flash better get its act together to stay in the game.
2009 saw a new breed of location based social networks. Top two players are FourSqaure and Gowalla and they are fighting it out pretty aggressively. When Gowalla launched an updated iPhone app, FourSqaure didn’t take many days to follow path.
The parent companies of these two, eBay and AliBaba, fought it out a few years ago and AliBaba beat eBay hands down when it came to the Chinese market. Now, PayPal is trying to get a stronghold in the Asian market but it is up against the already established AliPay.
Mozilla and Google are fiercely after cutting down Internet Explorers long established market share and they are coming pretty close. Google doesn’t care if somebody uses Firefox or Chrome (it supports both), all they want is Internet Explorer to disappear. A massive campaign was launched recently against IE6 but Microsoft’s latest browser IE8 seems to be pretty tough when it comes to security features.
8. Google Docs vs. Microsoft Office:
Google Docs was quickly adopted because of its Cloud based technology but with Microsoft also moving towards the cloud and a lot of third party add-ons available to the desktop based Microsoft Office, the competition is far from over.
This one is not a true war of technologies but its outcome may change the online video industry forever. The case is going on in the court right now. Expect to hear some historical decisions within the next couple of months.
Apple has been notorious about its vague and ridiculous app store policies. Developers hate it, but as of yet they can’t seem to do anything about it. IPhone app store is still a pot of gold that want to get a chunk of. Will this change in the next few months? May be.
What do you think will be the outcome of each of these? What other tech wars can you think of that are going on in the current year?
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